His velocity is down 2+ mph...so something ain't right. With that said his BABIP is .333 so he can still be effective at this speed if he can get back to a .280-.290 BABIP, which is in line with his career average. Everything else is fairly similar.

I was reading an article abut Verly recently, and if the info was accurate his outlook might be even worse than expected.Apparently Pitch f/x is classifying every single non-breaking pitch that is under 91 mph as a changeup. Like a straight as an arrow line, with no overlap between fastball/change whatsoever. But if you've watched him pitch at all this year its completely obvious that a lot of those sub-91 mph are in fact fastballs. So the velocity drop is probably even worse than what the numbers suggest.

Huge velocity drop, along with sudden loss of control, leads me to think that he has a possibly undiagnosed elbow injury that he is hiding. I definitely would NOT look to buy low on him.

Last edited by TheTrith on Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

J35J wrote:His velocity is down 2+ mph...so something ain't right. With that said his BABIP is .333 so he can still be effective at this speed if he can get back to a .280-.290 BABIP, which is in line with his career average. Everything else is fairly similar.

but part of the reason his BABIP is so much higher than career average, is precisely becasue his velocity is so much worse.Hard to tell which is the chicken, and which is the egg.I would not expect him to suddenly return to his former dominant self without regaining that fastball speed.And at his age, that is extremely unlikely.Unless of course he is hurt, and simply needs surgery or rest.

TheTrith wrote:I was reading an article abut Verly recently, and if the info was accurate his outlook might be even worse than expected.Apparently Pitch f/x is classifying every single non-breaking pitch that is under 91 mph as a changeup. Like a straight as an arrow line, with no overlap between fastball/change whatsoever. But if you've watched him pitch at all this year its completely obvious that a lot of those sub-91 mph are in fact fastballs. So the velocity drop is probably even worse than what the numbers suggest.

Huge velocity drop, along with sudden loss of control, leads me to think that he has a possibly undiagnosed elbow injury that he is hiding. I definitely would NOT look to buy low on him.

always classified his fastball that way. Looking at the velocity chart it doesn't seem to be much of a drop. Especially the chart for his slider, which is actually up a full MPH from last season. In my opinion, slider velocity is an important barometer for health. Given that his FIP is the same as it's been the last 3 seasons, I tend to not be worried. I might have just convinced myself to try to buy low. Once his BABIP corrects he'll probably be back to the old Verly.

I think you are talking about the fangraph's article, it says it is most likely decline. This from the comments on Fastball velocity:

...there is something wrong with Pitch F/X’s pitch classification. For Verlander it seems to have a firm rule: if it’s over 91 mph it’s a fastball and if it’s under 91 it’s a change-up. If you look at the game charts you can see that there are a bunch of fastballs being classified as change-ups in order not to break this rule, which also means that his average fastball velocity is being over-estimated.